1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to building construction procedures and equipment, and more particularly to a method and form blocks for constructing tilt-up concrete wall panels.
2. Description of Related Art
Tilt-up concrete wall panels facilitate building construction. Workers fabricate them at the building site and then tilt them up into position to form the walls. Doing so greatly simplifies construction. It also introduces some unique problems that need to be overcome.
Consider a typical tilt-up wall panel measuring about 35 feet by 24 feet by 8 inches thick. Workers fabricate it at the building site after the concrete floor slab has been poured by building it atop the floor slab. First, they place a suitable bond breaker release agent on the slab. Next, they build forms on the slab and set rebar or other reinforcing. Then, they pour concrete. After the concrete has cured, they break off the forms and tilt the wall panel up into position where it is suitably secured.
One major problem concerns the forms. In building the forms, workers nail (or screw) the individual form members to the concrete floor slab. In the case of nails, they drill quarter-inch holes in the concrete floor slab at spaced apart intervals and then drive two sixteen-penny nails through the forms into each hole. That holds the forms in place, but an array of nail holes results in the concrete floor slab. Although workers usually patch the holes, the hole locations are still visible and very undesirable to many developers and building specification writers. So, construction workers need a way to overcome this concern.